Author: theseventhsphinx

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smell this: Lolita Lempicka

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Lolita Lempicka is a strange and unexpected fragrance, designed by the talented Annick Menardo in 1997 for the French fashion house.  It opens with a very sweet licorice note—imagine aniseed (or maybe better, anisette) cotton candy—which softens but remains in the forefront for the duration of wear. Give it 10 to 20 minutes and it’s hard to say what is happening on your arm; chocolate, lavender, powder, vanilla…the scent is creamy yet not heavy, lasting several hours on me and seeming to change its face from one hour to the next and one wearing to the next. Sometimes it seems like a complex bourbon-vanilla and the licorice, which I can intellectually trace back to, is almost entirely disguised or subsumed by something like praline or marzipan with hints of coffee and chocolate throwing additional licorice-cloaking shadows.

This perfume is often compared to Mugler’s Angel, another sweet gourmand of an entirely different species (chocolate/vanilla/patchouli), and while Angel has something flirtatious and heady about it, the brightening, almost herbal quality of licorice, underscored by the actually herbal ivy and violet notes, keeps Lolita Lempicka light and innocent. It manages to be fully sweet, unmistakably sweet, without being cloying.  A more or less straight licorice doesn’t work for me (see Hermes Brin de Reglisse) but the creamy current of powdery tonka sweetness contrasted with the gentle violet grounds this fragrance.

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The classic Lolita Lempicka bottle is an apple, and the Lolita Lempicka Au Masculin bottle a tree trunk. I say: cute.

There is an Alice in Wonderland kind of strangeness to this perfume (this is the flavor, perhaps, of the EAT ME biscuit), which was extremely innovative when it was launched and still smells interesting and modern to me now. It can be a bit sweet for me, and it may be a bit sweet for you. It’s often a candidate for layering with something more masculine to temper the sweetness, and I often opt for the less creamy Au Masculin when I want a licorice note (I’ll tell you about that another time), but this is the kind of fragrance I love to find lingering on my scarf or sweater days later.

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on the menu: eggs baked in avocado

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This idea comes from The Garum Factory, co-authored by Jody Adams (head chef at the Rialto here in Cambridge) and her husband, Ken, who does the photography and much of the writing, and who I recently met (which is how I learned about the blog).  I find most of the recipes interesting mental exercises, like reading a cool cookbook, but this one for eggs baked in avocado I wanted to try.

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Pillivuyt Brasserie tableware on loan from Didriks

I overbaked them slightly such that the eggs were a bit dry (I would bake them less than the prescribed time for the next attempt, and watch them more closely), but they were really good all the same, totally redeemed by the bright, fresh guacamole/salsa hybrid offered as a side (see link for recipes). I intend to include ginger in [virtually, maybe literally] all of my salsas and guacamoles from now on.

Baked avocado has a pleasing richness, and is a nice way to dispatch an avocado that isn’t quite what it should be when it should be (underripe better than overripe, which can become a bit bitter in the baking I’m told). Weirdly good with coffee, I suppose due to the creamy fat of the avocado/egg situation contrasting with the acidity of the coffee. Will be perfecting these.